Unfortunate date choice

Thank you for allowing the Kansas Association of Counties the opportunity to respond to your Aug. 25 story “Kansas celebration scheduled for Yom Kippur in Wichita.”

The Kansas Association of Counties was invited to “sponsor” the event. One generally interprets a sponsorship to mean we donated financially to the cause and participated in planning the event. We did neither. We were asked to publicize the event to our member counties, which we have done by sending notice about the event to Kansas counties, inviting them to participate if they so choose. That is the extent of our involvement.

We regard the choice of date as unfortunate. One need only look at a calendar to realize the conflict and we are unsure how the mistake could have been made. Because we have affiliated ourselves with the program by offering ourselves as sponsors — no matter the small role we play — I apologize on behalf of my association for our lack of attention and sensitivity to Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people.

Melissa A. Wangemann
General Counsel
Kansas Association of Counties